I'm Here and I Stay: A Wayhaught Love Story
by alliejoannee
Summary: Everyone knows the story around the small town of Purgatory: Waverly Earp, the baby sister of Wynona Earp and descendent of gunslinging legend old Wyatt himself, murdered six years ago in a barn fire on Homestead, the Earp family's property. While Wynona used booze to numb the pain, Officer Nicole Haught, still believing Waverly was alive, had numbed her own pain by never giving up
1. Welcome to Purgatory

"I feel like I'm going in circles," Nicole Haught mumbled to herself as she trudged through the snow, only looking up from her map periodically to make sure she was going in the right direction.

Nicole had been out searching in the forest for almost three hours now with nothing to show for it, but that was the usual result of her expeditions. It was getting dangerously cold and dark, too dark to see the path in front of her. Nicole knew if she wanted to reach her police cruiser before nightfall she'd have to turn back soon, but she didn't want to turn back.

She never did.

What had started as a few random trips to the woods on the outskirts of the small town of Purgatory had over the years become a routine habit for Nicole. Call it dedication or obsession, Nicole returned to the forest day after day, night after night, searching for the missing Earp sister.

Everyone in Purgatory knew the story. Waverly Earp: baby sister of Wynonna Earp and descendent of gunslinging legend old Wyatt himself, had been murdered six years ago by her own mother in a barn fire on Homestead, the Earp family's property. Her body was so badly burned that even the skeletal remains had practically melted away. No one had ever heard of an ordinary fire hot enough to do something like that, but Purgatory was a strange place where even stranger things happened on the regular.

While the town had moved on and tried to put the past to rest, there was no rest for Nicole Haught. She couldn't get the idea out of her head that it was someone else's body that had been burned in that fire, that Waverly Earp was still alive. But no matter how many hours Nicole searched for the missing girl, she couldn't snuff the nagging question: if Waverly was still alive, where was she and why did she run away that night?

The map Doc, the local bartender, had given Nicole was hard to make heads or tales of, especially when the whole forest was covered in frost. She had been using the map to guide her toward an area of land southwest of Purgatory that was secluded and hard to reach on foot, a perfect place for someone on the run to hide. The deep snow made it difficult to cover ground quickly so she hadn't had much luck exploring the place.

A freezing wind blew across the forest floor, encouraging Nicole to turn back. As she started retracing her steps, Nicole noticed another set of tracks that weren't her own. She knelt down and examined the imprints. They didn't look human. They were large and oddly shaped like an animal's paw with long, extended toes.

"What kind of animal makes tracks like that?" Nicole whispered to herself.

Suddenly, a noise like the sound of a twig snapping echoed off in the distance. Nicole bolted upright and instinctively placed a hand on her holster, preparing to draw her gun if need be. She waited for a moment, still and silent. She peered through the darkness of the trees but saw no one.

"Waverly?" called Nicole, unsure and timid.

It was ridiculous to think she might run into Waverly in the forest, barefoot and scared, having escaped some crazy kidnapping maniac, only to run into Nicole's waiting arms. But as crazy as it sounded, part of her longed for it to be as simple as that, for Waverly to just show up out of the blue and for everything to go back to normal. Then again, Purgatory, and everyone in Purgatory, was far from normal.

"Officer Haught. 10-10 in progress. Please respond."

Nicole almost jumped out of her skin when the chatter came across her police radio. She took a calming breath and responded. "10-4. Go ahead."

"10-20. Shorty's Saloon. Got a fight in progress," said the responder.

"10-76," Nicole answered. "I'm on my way."

Keeping a steady eye on her surroundings, Nicole headed back down the trail toward the road where she'd parked her patrol car. Little did she know there had been someone there in the shadow of trees watching her, waiting for her to turn her back on them. Nicole's police smarts had saved her life, but they hadn't stopped what was coming for her.


	2. Keep the Home Fires Burning

Nicole didn't expect to see what she saw when she walked into Shorty's, but then again she certainly wasn't surprised by it either. There was Wynonna Earp, Waverly's older sister, holding the shards of a broken beer bottle to the throat of the bartender Doc. She had a fistful of his shirt and had pinned him between herself and the bar, and to Nicole it didn't look like she would be relenting too easily.

"Third time this month, Wynonna," said Nicole, nonchalantly. "Why don't you let Doc go and we'll call it a night?"

"Not until he apologizes," Wynonna growled.

"I don't rightly know what I'm apologizing for," Doc said, looking to Nicole for help with a nervous grin.

"You said, and I quote, 'I'm cutting you off. Go home and get some rest'."

"Oh, well somebody call the cavalry," Doc mocked her.

"I want the drink I ordered."

"You don't need another drink, darling," Doc snarled back. "You drink too much, matter of fact."

"Wynonna, come on, put down the bottle," Nicole called. "Don't do anything you'll regret."

Wynonna's anger redirected almost immediately from Doc to Nicole. She turned around slowly and tossed the remains of the broken bottle across the room, which shattered when it hit the wood floor.

"Regret?" Wynonna spat. "What the hell do you know about regret?"

Nicole was about to respond when Wynonna noticed the map sticking out of the pocket of Nicole's police issued jacket. She knew immediately what Nicole had been up to.

"Oh, God," Wynonna scoffed, her words slurring. "Don't tell me you're still looking for her?"

A wave of embarrassment flooded over Nicole. She'd been trying to keep her search for Waverly on the down low. The only person who knew was Sheriff Nedley and even he wasn't thrilled with the idea, but now Wynonna had brought her secret doings to light in front of everyone in Shorty's.

"I just do it on my free time," Nicole said, timidly.

"She's dead. Get it? Dead. She's not coming back. So why the hell are you still out there hunting her down like she a magical goddamned deer who's just gonna leap right out in front of you one day?"

"Wynonna, stop," Nicole whispered, angrily.

"Oh, come on! Tell us all about your theory, Officer 'Naught'. You know, the one about the night my baby sister was burned beyond recognition in our barn by our own mother, but how you think she's somehow survived and has been living in the woods all this time like Bear frickin' Grylls? Go ahead. Enlighten us."

Nicole looked around nervously at all the bar patrons who were watching the scene play out like some bad soap opera.

"We don't know it was her," Nicole blurted, unconvincingly.

"So who the hell was it then?" Wynonna raised her voice in anger.

"The autopsy report –"

"You know what your problem is?" Wynonna interrupted, moving closer. "You're weak. And lovesick."

Nicole's face turned red with embarrassment at that, and tears began welling up in her eyes. Nicole never hid the fact that she was gay, but she had tried to hide her affection for the late Waverly Earp. It was clear that Wynonna hadn't been so easily fooled.

"It doesn't matter how many hours you spend searching. Your little lovebird has flown the coop."

"Okay, that's enough," said Nicole, slapping a pair of cuffs on Wynonna.

"Wave goodbye to Waverly, boys!" Wynonna screeched as Nicole escorted her out the door.

Wynonna tried to fight back but she was too drunk to resist and finally allowed Nicole to put her in back of the patrol car. Suddenly, Doc exited Shorty's and approached Nicole.

"Got that horse broken yet?" he joked.

"She'll probably pass out before I get her back to Homestead," Nicole replied with a quick smile. "How're you holding up?"

"I could ask you the same thing. That map I gave you help any?"

"Sort of. It's really old. Where did you get it?"

"Had it for years. Helped me find my way around this place until I learned the lay of the land."

"I tried to reach that plot southwest of the river, but it's too cold to reach on foot. I feel like I'm never going to find her."

"Well, you know, there is always the possibility–"

"Not you too," Nicole rolled her eyes.

"Just trying to be realistic," Doc raised his hands defensively.

"Says the hundred-year-old immortal."

"Hundred and seventy," Doc corrected her. "I'm just saying. In my day, hope was the thing with bullets not feathers. Dreams don't always fly."

"The thing is, Doc, if I give up hope then she really is gone. Forever," Nicole gave Doc a somber nod before heading back to her patrol car.

From the driver's seat, she caught Wynonna's gaze in the rear view.

"You shouldn't be making fun of me for not giving up on Waverly," Nicole scolded her. "You should be helping me look for her. She's out there somewhere, you know."

"The dead don't speak, Officer Haught," Wynonna said, deadpan (emotionless). "Stop chasing ghosts."

With that, Nicole put the car in gear and drove out of the lot. When she finally reached Homestead some twenty minutes later, Nicole had to all but carry a now limp Wynonna into the house. She helped Wynonna into her bedroom and Wynonna immediately collapsed on her bed and fell asleep. Nicole was relieved but still a little bruised from the scene at Shorty's. She knew what Wynonna had said to her was just the alcohol talking but that still didn't make her feel any better. Part of her wondered if Wynonna was right, if searching for Waverly was a lost cause and she was only prolonging the inevitable realization that Waverly Earp was never coming back.

As Nicole passed by Waverly's old room, she creaked the door open and stole a glimpse of the inside. It was unchanged, all dusty and barren like a black hole that had sucked the life out of every square inch of the rest of the house. Knowing Wynonna, she hadn't step foot in or so much as cracked door to the room since the night of the fire half a decade ago. It was the room that time forgot but Nicole could never forget.

She started to close the door back but paused when she noticed something familiar sticking out of the top drawer of Waverly's old dresser. She entered and opened the drawer, pulling out a knit cap decorated with the Purgatory Sheriff Department's shield on the front. It looked almost the same as it did six years earlier when she'd given the hat to Waverly. It had been a present for Waverly's 20th birthday, the last birthday Waverly celebrated before the barn fire.

A warm flood of memories washed over Nicole, memories that felt good and bad at the same time. In fact, now, standing in Waverly's old room, even the good memories felt bad. She quickly placed the hat back in the drawer and left the room and the memories in the dust and darkness.

Once on the main floor, Nicole realized the state of disarray the house was in. The place was a mess littered with empty beer bottles, clothes, and dirty dishes. Nicole noticed something else. A picture lying face down on the fireplace mantle. She went over and sat the frame upright. It was a picture of Waverly in her cheerleading uniform, smiling and flashing a fancy pose like she always did. Nicole only had one picture of Waverly, one that Doc had gotten from Wynonna and had given to Nicole at Waverly's funeral. Nicole had kept the photo with her always but it was so small and worn and the image was beginning to fade. Seeing a clear picture of Waverly now made Nicole's heart sting with pain and remorse.

Maybe Nicole was in denial, maybe she was deluded and lying to herself to avoid accepting the truth, but it was her way of dealing with the pain just like booze was Wynonna's way of dealing with her own pain. Nicole knew the chances of Waverly actually being alive were slim to none, but she couldn't give up hope. Deep down, something told her to hold on.

"I won't stop looking for you, Waverly Earp," Nicole whispered, caressing Waverly's picture with her fingertips. "You can count on it."


End file.
